I feel as if I have been doing terrain forever! Part of me is itching to do something else but I want to finish one job at a time.

Anyway, here are a few more pictures along with some notes on my progress.  I am trying to emulate an open hilly plain, similar to Ireland or the open areas of England, similar to this photograph:

I also wanted to add a rocky area for resource gathering as well as a river valley.  I finally added trees, in clumps like you might find in such an area but I am not entirely happy with them.

Here is an overview of the terrain showing the river, hills and some trees.

The detail of the terrain has been enhanced by the use of color maps, which underlie the terrain textures.  You can also see the use of bump maps which enhance the shadows giving more definition to the eroded hills.

I may change the forests from small clumps to a few larger ones at lower elevations. Not sure yet but here is a close up shot of one of the forests with undergrowth.  I wish you could see the animation in this picture.  The trees shake in the wind sending dappled light onto the forest floor. Very pretty!

I also added some patches of reeds along the river banks. Again, it is a balance between too much detail which lags the game and enough to look nice.

Another shot of the river, this time revealing the quarry rocks high above the valley.

My favorite part of level design is making all the little details. I haven’t been able to do much of that so far but did spend a small amount of time playing with the quarry.

Now I need to scatter some rocks and stones at the base of the quarry, a few carts, and some tools and shelters for the stone cutters.

Unfortunately, I need to work on roads before I can play with more detail but hopefully it will happen soon!

On the other end of things, we are moving ahead to ready our Phase 1 Alpha, Among the Ashes. The programmers are refining the networking for this specific phase and we will be adding the features we need to get started.

Also, we have added a new artist and I will introduce her to you in a future blog. 🙂 Her enthusiasm is contagious!  Oh, and she loves the Aethans!

Teila